Statue of Columbus in Ohio. (Photo: Wally Gobetz)As the symbols of the Confederacy have again become the targets of anti-racist social movements since the events in Charlottesville in August, activists are building on the present momentum to call for the removal or replacement of memorials belonging to other controversial figures in US history, from Christopher Columbus to Frank Rizzo. As we approach the 525th anniversary of the so-called "Discovery of America" this October 12, it is an appropriate time to revisit the stakes of what it entails to memorialize the man credited with discovering the existence of another world beyond Europe, Asia and Africa, the so-called "New World."

The key problem raised by the critics of Columbus concerns the uncritical repetition of the colonial mantra that claims Columbus "discovered" this so-called "New World." For not only is it historically documented that Columbus never knew that he had arrived at a landmass that is not "Asia" (Europeans only realized this with Amerigo Vespucci's accounts of his own trips well into the 1500s), but also and more importantly, one should ask oneself what it means to "discover" a region of the world that is not empty, but instead contains several flourishing civilizations in it. The issue is that the mantra that Columbus "discovered" anything presupposes the narrative vantage point of Western European imperialism, at the same time as it invalidates the narrative vantage points of the peoples that were visited upon by these so-called "discoverers" i.e. the Indigenous peoples of the Americas, peoples that far from being ghosts of the past continue to live in the present all around us (70 percent of Native Americans now live in cities, not reservations). If history here is written by the victors, the victims of Columbus have never been fully silenced. The victors simply refuse to hear them.

RAFAEL VIZCAÍNO FOR BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

Statue of Columbus in Ohio. (Photo: Wally Gobetz)As the symbols of the Confederacy have again become the targets of anti-racist social movements since the events in Charlottesville in August, activists are building on the present momentum to call for the removal or replacement of memorials belonging to other controversial figures in US history, from Christopher Columbus to Frank Rizzo. As we approach the 525th anniversary of the so-called "Discovery of America" this October 12, it is an appropriate time to revisit the stakes of what it entails to memorialize the man credited with discovering the existence of another world beyond Europe, Asia and Africa, the so-called "New World."

The key problem raised by the critics of Columbus concerns the uncritical repetition of the colonial mantra that claims Columbus "discovered" this so-called "New World." For not only is it historically documented that Columbus never knew that he had arrived at a landmass that is not "Asia" (Europeans only realized this with Amerigo Vespucci's accounts of his own trips well into the 1500s), but also and more importantly, one should ask oneself what it means to "discover" a region of the world that is not empty, but instead contains several flourishing civilizations in it. The issue is that the mantra that Columbus "discovered" anything presupposes the narrative vantage point of Western European imperialism, at the same time as it invalidates the narrative vantage points of the peoples that were visited upon by these so-called "discoverers" i.e. the Indigenous peoples of the Americas, peoples that far from being ghosts of the past continue to live in the present all around us (70 percent of Native Americans now live in cities, not reservations). If history here is written by the victors, the victims of Columbus have never been fully silenced. The victors simply refuse to hear them.

Against what President Donald Trump and many others argue, the call to remove the statues of Columbus is not done out of an attempt to erase or forget the history that came out of the colonial "encounter," much less out of so-called "political correctness" or anti-Italian sentiments. Quite the contrary, it is a lack of historical understanding that has allowed for the very development and perpetuation of the ideology of Columbus as the "discoverer of the New World" in the first place. The call to remove such statues (and likely other symbols of violence, such as many of those related to the Confederacy), has to do not with the erasure or forgetting of history, but with the practice of memorialization. In memorializing a man like Columbus with statues, street names, and so on, there are many presuppositions that go unexamined that entail fundamental questions as to who is the subject that is doing the work of remembering, or whose narrative vantage point is taken for those memories and stories to make sense.

To memorialize Columbus as a "discoverer" is simply to continue upholding a colonial narrative vantage point that celebrates Western European imperialism at the cost of the blood of its victims, making the subject that remembers here a Western European colonizing subject. If the United States is to be something more than a product of Western European imperialism and colonization, the subject that is doing the work of remembering has to transform itself to account for those subjects whose voices have been muzzled by the guns and pens of Western European imperialism and colonization, e.g. the Indigenous peoples of the Americas and Black peoples. From their perspective, Columbus appears not as the discoverer of a "New World," but instead as the violent catalyst that would inaugurate the very end of the world, a legacy that lives through today's violations of Indigenous and Black lives. Taking this vantage point into account is bound to transform the subject that does the work of remembering and memorializing history. What is at stake here is ultimately the constitution of the "we" that remembers, whether it will continue to be a Western European colonizing subject, or whether it will be one that thinks beyond Western European imperialism, not by forgetting or disavowing the violent legacies of colonization and enslavement, but by fully understanding them historically and in their present afterlives.

Far from erasing or forgetting history, taking down the statues that memorialize Columbus is about doing justice to the victims of that specific history, as well as about coming to terms with how the legacies of that history have shaped the questions of who we are and what we represent. It is indeed about having a better understanding of history, and about remembering the past in a way that helps us learn from it moving forward. Doing otherwise would entail maintaining an ideological colonial status quo that remembers selectively so as to self-legitimate itself, carrying into the future unexamined legacies of colonization. Those that defend the ideology of Christopher Columbus must at least be clear as to what their worldview's presuppositions are before muddling the waters of the debate any further.

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Rafael Vizcaíno is completing a Ph.D. on critiques of colonization in the Caribbean and Latin America across literature and philosophy.

(Photo: Rachel Knickmeyer / Flickr)The American people are deeply frustrated with not being fairly represented in Congress and with not having a voice in our democracy. They are demanding an end to our great political divide and a return to a working democracy. For years politicians have been well aware of these concerns and the need for the two parties to be civil and work together. And, they know that trust in government has been at an all time low. But the problem persists unabated.

Republicans now control all three branches of government, yet they haven't had an acceptable administration in years. They allowed a preventable 9/11 and two wars to occur, failed two terms in office, and constantly checkmated the other party's success while offering no solutions of their own. There is something fundamentally wrong in our democratic system and it has to be addressed.

Our great political divide began in a big way when, after owning the White House for 12 years, Republicans lost it unexpectedly to the Clinton presidency. They were outraged at the loss, considered his victory illegitimate and believed he had to be driven from office. The political environment that followed has continued to the present day and is best expressed byRepublican George Voinovich. After saving Cleveland from default as mayor and making Ohio number one as governor, he worked across the aisle during two terms in the Senate (winning all 88 Ohio counties) and always had the ear of the president. He confessed at Senate retirement that the attitude of his colleagues was "We're going to get what we want or the country can go to hell."

BURT HALL FOR BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

(Photo: Rachel Knickmeyer / Flickr)The American people are deeply frustrated with not being fairly represented in Congress and with not having a voice in our democracy. They are demanding an end to our great political divide and a return to a working democracy. For years politicians have been well aware of these concerns and the need for the two parties to be civil and work together. And, they know that trust in government has been at an all time low. But the problem persists unabated.

Republicans now control all three branches of government, yet they haven't had an acceptable administration in nearly 30 years (since the Reagan/Bush era). They allowed a preventable 9/11 and two wars to occur, failed two terms in office, and constantly checkmated the other party's success while offering no solutions of their own. There is something fundamentally wrong in our democratic system and it has to be addressed.

Our great political divide began in a big way when, after owning the White House for 12 years, Republicans lost it unexpectedly to the Clinton presidency. They were outraged at the loss, considered his victory illegitimate and believed he had to be driven from office. The political environment that followed has continued to the present day and is best expressed byRepublican George Voinovich. After saving Cleveland from default as mayor and making Ohio number one as governor, he worked across the aisle during two terms in the Senate (winning all 88 Ohio counties) and always had the ear of the president. He confessed at Senate retirement that the attitude of his colleagues was "We're going to get what we want or the country can go to hell".

To get what they wanted, Republicans dishonored the integrity of the American ballot with two strategies. First, they dramatically changed their response to presidential elections from honoring the "people have spoken" to one of no presumption of legitimacy of an elected president. Second, Republicans limited voter participation of groups likely to vote Democratic and then diluted the voting power of those who did vote.

The Republican strategy of no presumption of legitimacy led to immediate refusals to accept presidential election results. In the case of President Clinton, baseless investigations and impeachment plagued his tenure and were employed in a failed coup to remove him from office. The vast majority of Americans, members of Congress, law professors and historians favored censuring Clinton for having lied under oath about a private affair -- a public reprimand.

Nevertheless, obsessed with impeachment, House Republican leaders railroaded it in a lame duck House session by blackmailing their members to get the necessary votes. House leaders knew Senate conviction was out of the question; their intent was to simply force Clinton to resign, as Nixon had done. He did not. The impeachment had nothing to do with Clinton's performance in office and it violated the U.S. Constitution.

The Republican strategy of Limited voter participation led to control of legislatures across the nation and in Washington and gave Republicans the power to obstruct presidents, gridlock legislation and shutdown government. They did so relentlessly during the Obama presidency. He was delegitimized and ruthlessly obstructed nonstop during his tenure in an attempt to force his presidency to fail. It did not. Among the many legislative obstructions were refusals to consider rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure and reforming our immigration system – matters still unresolved today.

Both Clinton and Obama had been duly elected for two terms and weathered the storm. Historians now rank them near the top ten of all U.S. presidents. However, throughout their elected and reelected terms, the American people suffered from a destructive political environment during which much more could have been accomplished for them economically and otherwise. The first Republican administration to follow this destructive environment was the Bush/Cheney presidency and the second is the one we have now, the Trump presidency.

The attempts to nullify Clinton's presidency and related media frenzy led to the closest presidential election in history. The Supreme Court elected George W. Bush, by overstepping its judicial authority and stopping the Florida recount. Soon afterwards, two independent media recounts showed that the Supreme Court had elected the wrong president.

The Bush/Cheney Republican presidency did not maintain President Clinton's priorities on balanced budgets with surpluses or on responding to the gathering threat of international terrorism. Osama Bin Laden had already declared war on the United States and attacked us a few times, including a1993 bombing of the World Trade Center that failed. The terrorist leader was captured, prosecuted and jailed. Clinton responded to the rising threat by appointing a chief of counterterrorism to the White House who reported directly to him. They developed a series of anti-terrorism capabilities and a bold plan of attack to destroy Osama Bin Laden's network in Afghanistan. It was to be activated as soon as the FBI confirmed responsibility for the 2000 attack on the Navy destroyer, USS Cole.

During transition, the Bush/Cheney White House was fully informed of the gravity of the terrorism threat and the network headed by Osama Bin Laden by President Clinton's national security team, the CIA Director, the White House chief of counter-terrorism and two separate U.S. national security commissions, one on terrorism and the other on threats of the 21st century. Nevertheless, the Bush/Cheney White House (1) let a CIA death warrant on Bin Laden lapse, refusing twice to renew it, (2) demoted the chief of counterterrorism who no longer reported to the President and (3) disregarded the Bin Laden bold attack plan although he was responsible for the USS Cole attack.

During the spring and summer that followed, the U.S. received extraordinary warnings from heads of state of England (twice), Jordan (twice) Russia ("in strongest possible terms ") and from intelligence agencies of other countries, such as the top ones of Germany and Israel. Warnings included the hijacking of U.S. aircraft for use as missiles and that twenty al-Qaeda members had slipped into the U.S., four of whom were training to fly. Israel gave us a terrorist list of persons residing in the U.S. and four of them were the actual hijackers. Other warnings reported the 9/11 code, "The Big Wedding" and Bin Laden's regret over failure of the first attack on the World Trade Center.

In June, The CIA Director informed the White House that "attack preparations have been made. Attack will occur with little or no warning …This is going to be a big one … of catastrophic proportions." In July, when there was still no response, the CIA Director made an emergency unannounced visit to the White House to present his case for a military response at that "very moment". Again there was no response -- no serious precautions taken, no rounding up of al-Qaeda agents reported to be in our country, no screening of flying schools and passenger lists, no locks put on cockpit doors and, most damaging of all, no warnings made to the American people as President Clinton had done with far lesser terrorism threats.

Following this 9/11 breach of national security, the White House recklessly responded with two unnecessary wars with no end in sight, while allowing Bin Laden to escape without pursuit. Neither of the wars were justified based on information known at that time. Cover-ups of these colossal errors in judgment followed and permitted reelection of the failed presidency for a second term. The Katrina disaster, the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, a plummeting stock market and huge job losses followed. Future historians will find it difficult to estimate the devastation done during these two Republican terms and perpetuated by shortfalls of the 9/11 Commission.

As to limiting voter participation, the votes of Democrats and Independents willing to leap voting hurdles erected by Republicans were rendered worthless by legislative boundaries drawn to elect only members of one party. Voters could no longer choose their elected officials; party officials had already done it for them. In general, those who might vote against their candidate were exported and those who were likely to favor their candidate were imported.

These distorted and discriminatory voting districts contributed to landslides in 9 out of every 10 House races in 2016. In 2017, they contributed to two special election Republican wins. For example, not even a strong Democrat candidate with a $39 million war chest could overcome the GOP engineered map for Georgia's sixth district. It has been safe for 21 straight elections (The Secret Behind Latest Democratic Losses, Hedrick Smith). Among other things, this unconstitutional practice offers candidates safe seats and freedom to be totally partisan. And, it discourages competition from worthy candidates of the other party. While both parties do this, Republicans did it four times as much as Democrats using a very effective high-tech computer-aided method.

It is clearly unconstitutional to rig voting systems for personal and partisan gain of the political party in power. At the state level, illegal districts with legislative majorities permit passage of unconstitutional bills, such as voter suppression and discriminatory bills that hurt everyday Americans. And, their majorities safeguard the illegal districts – a catch 22. At the federal level, illegal districts permit House members to obstruct a president of the other party or, when their party owns the White House, the passage of bad legislation, such as the recent healthcare bills.

Now, our two-party system is broken and too divided for any president to govern and we are living in an entirely different world today because of it. Our worldwide admired democracy has been abandoned. And, unless civility returns to our politics, we are heading for a national crisis of unknown proportions.

Is it right for Republicans to interfere with our elections, but wrong for Russia to do it? Is Russian hacking worst than voter suppression and partisan drawn maps diluting power of those who do vote? Do Republicans have some special privilege to interfere with American elections that outsiders don't have? Do we need protection from both? A cartoon in the Richmond Times Dispatch said "What makes you think the Russians can do a better job of undermining our democracy than we can?"

Trump is just a symptom of our unraveling democracy. We must deal with the underlying problems or symptoms will surface again in different ways in future elections. Any hope of restoring our democracy and revitalizing the Democratic Party must begin with a clear recognition of how bad things are today and holding public officials accountable for their mishandling of government affairs. Only when confronted with this accountability will Republicans reform their win–at-any-cost political strategies and one day regain the trust of the American people.

Overall, the mission of the Democratic Party should be to turn our politics around to the better days of the last century when our country was mostly unified and exceptional. The Democratic Party must figure out what it stands for in our democracy. Otherwise, it can't win anything.

The aim of a Democratic message and strategy should be to (1) address reforms of our electoral system so that members of Congress will be elected to provide fair representation in accordance with our Constitution and (2) protect the public against further interference with our political system, whether foreign or domestic. The message must direct a change in culture of the Congress to the successful bipartisan one of earlier decades, promote youthful Democratic leadership and encourage return of disappearing Republican moderates that contributed so much to our exceptionalism of the past century.

A truly participatory democracy will lead to overwhelming grass roots support and resources to assist in upcoming elections. Otherwise history will simply repeat itself. Democrats must correct the corrupt political system that stole their power and Supreme Court seat and hold public officials accountable for mishandling government affairs. Until Republicans begin to accept responsibility for their misconduct, they will not be ready or entitled to serve in office. In the end, the people deserve the working democracy our founders gave us, not the one we have today.

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After private industry careers, Burt Hall joined the General Accountability Office where he reached the level of group director analyst on national security matters reporting to and testifying before Congress. Twice he was loaned for two years, once to a bipartisan congressional commission and later to the Reagan White House. He is a WW II veteran and graduate of the Harvard Management Program. He has authored several books including the one on which this article is based, The Right-Wing Threat to Democracy, the Undoing of America's Exceptionalism.

(Photo: Bruce Fingerhood)Washington, D.C., needs a three-dimensional, sculptural Guernica dedicated to and with explanatory information about the victims of U.S. bombings in over 30 countries that the United States has bombed.

And it needs such a monument to the victims of wars now, to help move the country away from war. We can't wait to create the monument after having achieved a society willing to make room for it among the war-glorification monstrosities gobbling up more and more space in the U.S. capital.

With land unavailable for peace in the land of war temples, the obvious solution is a rooftop. The Methodist Building across from the Capitol and the Supreme Court, or the nearby FCNL building, or any other prominent building with a roof could radically alter the DC skyline and worldview.

Bureacratic hurdles would have to be cleared, height kept below that of the Capitol dome, etc. But a rooftop could make a monument more visible, not less. An external elevator could take people close-up to view, learn more, and photograph.

DAVID SWANSON FOR BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

(Photo: Bruce Fingerhood)Washington, D.C., needs a three-dimensional, sculptural Guernica dedicated to and with explanatory information about the victims of U.S. bombings in over 30 countries that the United States has bombed.

And it needs such a monument to the victims of wars now, to help move the country away from war. We can't wait to create the monument after having achieved a society willing to make room for it among the war-glorification monstrosities gobbling up more and more space in the U.S. capital.

With land unavailable for peace in the land of war temples, the obvious solution is a rooftop. The Methodist Building across from the Capitol and the Supreme Court, or the nearby FCNL building, or any other prominent building with a roof could radically alter the DC skyline and worldview.

Bureacratic hurdles would have to be cleared, height kept below that of the Capitol dome, etc. But a rooftop could make a monument more visible, not less. An external elevator could take people close-up to view, learn more, and photograph.

A plan to build such a monument would allow a design competition that could attract major artists, which in turn could attract major donations sufficient to fund the project.

While we're paying attention to the problem of Confederate monuments, we might expand our concern to include the monuments to every other side of every other war, and every participant glorified in D.C. statuary. As powerful, or moreso, than ripping them all down, would be to add a peace monument to the mix.

We don't know if we can make President Obama act -- so far he's been noncommittal and vague. And we don't know if Trump would simply overturn his actions if he took them. But we do know that now more than ever we have to stand by our allies, and make our battles loud and public.

The ugly side of the American psyche that's propelled Trump to the presidency is nothing new to Indigenous people. It's nothing new to people of color, to immigrants, to the vulnerable and the marginalized. This is a time for drawing together the many threads of our resistance -- to fossil fuels, yes, but also and just as importantly to widespread hatred.

Solidarity with Indigenous leadership -- in Standing Rock and beyond -- is more important today, not less. The original inhabitants of this continent have been pepper-sprayed and shot with rubber bullets, maced and attacked by guard dogs, all for peacefully standing up for their sovereign rights, and for the world around us. If we can't rally in support of them -- well, that would be shameful.

The first step is to learn the facts, and then to get angry and to ask ourselves, as progressives and caring human beings, what we can do about the relentless transfer of wealth to a small group of well-positioned Americans.

1. $2.13 per hour vs. $3,000,000.00 per hour

Each of the Koch brothers saw his investments grow by $6 billion in one year, which is three million dollars per hour based on a 40-hour 'work' week. They used some of the money to try to kill renewable energy standards around the country.

PAUL BUCHHEIT FOR BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

The first step is to learn the facts, and then to get angry and to ask ourselves, as progressives and caring human beings, what we can do about the relentless transfer of wealth to a small group of well-positioned Americans.

1. $2.13 per hour vs. $3,000,000.00 per hour

Each of the Koch brothers saw his investments grow by $6 billion in one year, which is three million dollars per hour based on a 40-hour 'work' week. They used some of the money to try to kill renewable energy standards around the country.

Their income portrays them, in a society measured by economic status, as a million times more valuable than therestaurant server who cheers up our lunch hours while hoping to make enough in tips to pay the bills.

A comparison of top and bottom salaries within large corporations is much less severe, but a lot more common. For CEOs and minimum-wage workers, the difference is $5,000.00 per hour vs. $7.25 per hour.

2. A single top income could buy housing for every homeless person in the U.S.

4. The U.S. is nearly the most wealth-unequal country in the entire world

Out of 141 countries, the U.S. has the 4th-highest degree of wealth inequality in the world, trailing only Russia, Ukraine, and Lebanon.

Yet the financial industry keeps creating new wealth for its millionaires. According to the authors of the Global Wealth Report, the world's wealth has doubled in ten years, from $113 trillion to $223 trillion, and is expected to reach $330 trillion by 2017.

5. A can of soup for a black or Hispanic woman, a mansion and yacht for the businessman

Minority families once had substantial equity in their homes, but after Wall Street caused the housing crash, median wealth fell 66% for Hispanic households and 53% for black households. Now the average single black or Hispanic woman has about $100 in net worth.

Institute a Financial Speculation Tax, both to raise needed funds from a currently untaxed subsidy on stock purchases, and to reduce the risk of the irresponsible trading that nearly brought down the economy.

Perhaps above all, we progressives have to choose one strategy and pursue it in a cohesive, unrelenting attack on greed. Only this will heal the ugly gash of inequality that has split our country in two.

Paul Buchheit is the founder and developer of social justice and educational websites (UsAgainstGreed.org, PayUpNow.org, RappingHistory.org), and the editor and main author of "American Wars: Illusions and Realities" (Clarity Press). He can be reached at paul@UsAgainstGreed.org.

Now, as for those conservatives who are dancing on what they think are the graves of the working class labor movement. There are a few stories they aren’t reporting.

In Wisconsin, the recall election of Scott Walker did fail, as out-of-state individuals, PACs, and corporations contributed about two-thirds of his $30 million campaign to keeping him in office, as opposed to his opponent raising only about one-eighth of that amount. However, in subsequent elections, all three Democratic senators survived recall votes, and two of six Republican senators were recalled, leading to a change in Senate membership from 19–14 Republican to 17–16 Republican, but effectively blocking a “super majority” from ramrodding further anti-worker legislation into law.

In Ohio, voters overwhelmingly rejected, 62–38 percent, the new Ohio law that stripped collective bargaining rights of public employee unions. In defeat, Gov. Kasich, whose attacks upon collective bargaining were a central part of his campaign, said “It’s clear the people have spoken.”

Monday is Labor Day. It’s more than just picnics and a three-day weekend. It’s a time to honor the working class, and the unions that gave them the rights of collective bargaining. They may be struggling but they are far from dead.

WALTER BRASCH FOR BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

Almost every conservative political columnist, pundit, commentator, blogger, and bloviator has written about the decline and forthcoming death of the labor movement.

They happily point to Wisconsin, where Republican Gov. Scott Walker shortly after taking office in January 2011 took advantage of a Republican majority in the House and Senate to ram through legislation that stripped numerous collective bargaining rights for public employee unions. Among collective bargaining rights are those that assure decent working conditions and a fair grievance process to prevent arbitrary and discriminatory discipline.

The Republicans point to Ohio, where Republican Gov. John Kasich, with similar legislative support, signed legislation in March 2011 that restricted collective bargaining rights for public sector employees.

They point to state after state where Republican legislators, with the financial support of private industry, have brought forth self-serving bills to oppose collective bargaining.

The conservative mantra is to pander to the middle-class pocketbook by creating a pseudo-populist appeal. The right-wing claims they are the ones who care about the people enough to cut government spending, which will lower all kinds of taxes. They altruistically scream that inflated payrolls and pensions caused economic problems, and the best way to help those who are struggling in a depressed economy is to lower those costs by curtailing the perceived power of unions. It sounds nice; it’s also rhetoric encased in lies.

Numerous economic studies have shown that the pay for public union employees is about the same as for private sector employees in similar jobs. And in some jobs, public sector workers earn less than non-unionized private sector workers, leading to professionals and technical specialists often switching jobs from government to private industry, usually at higher wages and benefits.

So what, exactly, is the problem? Tax cuts. Bill Clinton left office, having given the nation a strong economy. During the Go-Go years in the first part of the 21st century, under the Bush–Cheney administration, states and the federal government created tax cuts for individuals, and held out generous tax cuts, tax waivers, and subsidies to corporations. The Republican theory was that these tax cuts would eventually “trickle down” to the masses by stimulating the economy.

What happened is that instead of benefitting the masses, these forms of wealthfare and corporate welfare have done little to stimulate an economy that was heading down because the Republican executive and legislative branches, preaching less government, didn’t want government interference in financial institutions, the most politically conservative business. As a result of deregulation or, in many cases minimal regulation oversight, came the twin catastrophes of the Wall Street scandals and the housing mortgage crisis that spun the nation into the deepest recession since the Depression of the 1930s.

But you don’t hear the Republicans tell you they caused it, only that a run-away economy is because of those fictional high government salaries that need to be cut.

Joseph Slater, professor of law at the University of Toledo, says because of the 2008 crisis, states experienced massive budget shortfalls because growing unemployment decreased tax revenue. The problem in the states and the federal government, Slater told NEA Today, isn’t because of collective bargaining, “because some of the worst state budget problems are in the small handful of states that prohibit public sector collective bargaining, states like Texas and North Carolina.” However, said Slater in an article for the American Constitution Society, “states with strong public sector collective bargaining laws . . . have smaller than average deficits.”

In response to conservative calls to curtail “pension abuse” in the public sector, Slater pointed out that “the vast majority of states don’t allow unions to bargain over public pension benefits,” and that some of the worst pension problems are in the so-called right-to-work states that have no public employee unions.

In contrast to the all-out assault upon the workers by Republicans, Govs. Dan Malloy of Connecticut and Jerry Brown of California, both Democrats, have been reducing budget deficits, sometimes with a heavy hand as they slash programs and the number of workers, in consultation with the unions and without curtailing union rights. Unionized workers in both private and public sectors have taken temporary pay cuts or agreed to taking vacation days without pay. Few corporate executives and no state legislators have willingly matched the sacrifices of the workers.

Now, as for those conservatives who are dancing on what they think are the graves of the working class labor movement. There are a few stories they aren’t reporting.

In Wisconsin, the recall election of Scott Walker did fail, as out-of-state individuals, PACs, and corporations contributed about two-thirds of his $30 million campaign to keeping him in office, as opposed to his opponent raising only about one-eighth of that amount. However, in subsequent elections, all three Democratic senators survived recall votes, and two of six Republican senators were recalled, leading to a change in Senate membership from 19–14 Republican to 17–16 Republican, but effectively blocking a “super majority” from ramrodding further anti-worker legislation into law.

In Ohio, voters overwhelmingly rejected, 62–38 percent, the new Ohio law that stripped collective bargaining rights of public employee unions. In defeat, Gov. Kasich, whose attacks upon collective bargaining were a central part of his campaign, said “It’s clear the people have spoken.”

Monday is Labor Day. It’s more than just picnics and a three-day weekend. It’s a time to honor the working class, and the unions that gave them the rights of collective bargaining. They may be struggling but they are far from dead.

Walter Brasch is a syndicated social issues columnist and author. His latest book is the critically acclaimed journalistic novel, Before the First Snow: Stories from the Revolution, which has an underlying union theme. He is a proud member of several professional and trade unions, including The Newspaper Guild/Communication Workers of America.

]]>mark@truthout.org (markkarlin)Guest CommentaryMon, 03 Sep 2012 06:18:28 -0700Are We Better Off Now Than When Bush Left Office? Absolutely, George W. Left Us in the Gutter.http://buzzflash.com/commentary/are-we-better-off-now-than-when-bush-left-office-absolutely-george-w-left-us-in-the-gutter
http://buzzflash.com/commentary/are-we-better-off-now-than-when-bush-left-office-absolutely-george-w-left-us-in-the-gutter

MARC PERKEL FOR BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

Romney raised the issue in his speech if we are better off than when Obama took office. Are you kidding me? Of course we are!

When Obama took office America was lying in the street dying from a near fatal wound from the last Republican president. The banking system collapsed. We were losing 750,000 jobs a month. Housing collapsed. Construction stopped. The auto industry was in a death spiral. America was in a state of complete panic. Our nation was dying under Bush.

MARC PERKEL FOR BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

Romney raised the issue in his speech if we are better off than when Obama took office. Are you kidding me? Of course we are!

When Obama took office America was lying in the street dying from a near fatal wound from the last Republican president. The banking system collapsed. We were losing 750,000 jobs a month. Housing collapsed. Construction stopped. The auto industry was in a death spiral. America was in a state of complete panic. Our nation was dying under Bush.

Granted it would be nice if things were better but we're still here. If we had elected yet another Republican president there wouldn't be an America today, except for plutocrats.

I don't think Romney thought that question through, because if we remember how things were the day Obama took office there's no way we're going back there again. Why would Romney bring that up?

For the last few months EcoWatch has been covering what's become the worst drought in the U.S. in more than half a century. More than 3,200 daily high temperature records were set or tied in June, and July is in the books as the warmest month ever recorded in the lower 48 states, according to a report issued by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's National Climatic Data Center.

Besides the discomfort of relentless heat and unmitigated sunshine, the drought has forced us to rethink several issues commonly taken for granted—namely, abundant and affordable food, secure livelihoods for farmers, safety from natural disasters, practical public policy regarding the delegation of crops for food and biofuels, and most importantly, the value of water.

The value of water is inestimable. Without it, as the drought has shown us, uncertainty and chaos quickly enter the picture, throwing superpower economies off kilter and quite literally, imperiling lives.

But that’s not all.

The drought of 2012 has more to teach us about the value of water as it lurches on, including the issues surrounding water as an integral component of conventional energy generation.

The undisputed champion of the current U.S. energy debate is hydraulic fracturing or fracking. As conventional oil and gas resources become more difficult to come by, energy companies now have to dig deeper than ever to unearth the rich deposits of fossil fuels still available. In order to fracture shale formations that often exist thousands of feet below the surface, drillers use anywhere from 1 to 8 million gallons of water per frack. A well may be fracked up to 18 times. The water, usually drawn from natural resources such as lakes and rivers, is unrecoverable once it’s blasted into the earth, and out of the water cycle for good.

Even if there wasn’t a problem with water contamination, deforestation, and noise and air pollution from fracking, the pro-drilling agenda would still be hit hard with an insurmountable roadblock—access to abundant water.

In Kansas, oil and gas drillers are running out of options due to the tenth driest July on record. Companies with dwindling access to water resources are resorting to paying farmers for what water they have left, or more, drilling their own water wells, digging ponds next to streams or trucking in water from places as far way as Pennsylvania, according to CNN Money.

Jeff Gordon, the CEO of Texas Coastal Energy Co. said, “That can cripple a drilling company, as lack of water can basically suspend operations.”

Fracking isn’t the only dirty energy industry that relies on water for its operations. On Aug. 12, Unit 2 of the Millstone Nuclear Power Station in Connecticut—which provides half of Connecticut’s power and 12 percent of New England’s—was shut down because the seawater used to cool the plant was too warm, according to the Hartford Courant.

In its 37-year history of operation, Unit 2 of the Millstone Power Station has never shut down due to excessively warm water. The power station, which draws its water from Long Island Sound, must cool its reactors with water no warmer than 75 degrees F, but following the hottest July on record, the water has been averaging 1.7 degrees F above the limit, according to the Hartford Courant.

According to a River Network report in June, electricity production by coal, nuclear and natural gas power plants is the fastest-growing use of freshwater in the U.S., accounting for more than half of all fresh, surface water withdrawals from rivers. This is more than any other economic sector, including agriculture, and occurs in an era when all other use sectors are reducing water withdrawals.

According to the report, more than a quarter of the water withdrawn by fossil-fuel power plants to cool their generators goes up in steam—the remainder carries pollutants and excess heat into rivers and waterways, causing fish kills and algae blooms.

Put in perspective, for every gallon of water used in an average household, five times more water (40,000 gallons each month) is used to provide that home with electricity via hydropower turbines and fossil fuel power plants.

Creating a sustainable relationship with the world’s freshwater resources is the most vital environmental issue facing us today. While scientists continue to work on creative uses of wastewater to stretch our resources farther—such as substitution, regeneration and reduction—a prevailing shift in attitude that values water over profits will ultimately be required to ensure the world’s population will have access to safe drinking water.

In the wake of Paraguay’s suspicious impeachment of President Fernando Lugo, which observers have likened to a kind of “quasi-coup,” some may wonder whether underhanded corporate forces may have played a role in the political crisis. Such suspicions were heightened recently when the new de facto regime led by Federico Franco, Lugo’s former conservative Vice President, inked a deal with Texas-based PetroVictory/Crescent Global Oil to open up the remote Chaco region to petroleum exploration.

Supporters of Lugo’s highly dubious ouster claim that Crescent could help to ease Paraguay’s dependence on foreign oil. Richard González, Crescent’s CEO, announced that the company would invest $10 million in the Chaco and start exploratory drilling within the next few months. To be sure, there’s no proof or “smoking gun” that Crescent had anything to do with the political shakeup in Paraguay, yet the timing of the deal raises eyebrows.

NIKOLAS KOZLOFF FOR BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

In the wake of Paraguay’s suspicious impeachment of President Fernando Lugo, which observers have likened to a kind of “quasi-coup,” some may wonder whether underhanded corporate forces may have played a role in the political crisis. Such suspicions were heightened recently when the new de facto regime led by Federico Franco, Lugo’s former conservative Vice President, inked a deal with Texas-based PetroVictory/Crescent Global Oil to open up the remote Chaco region to petroleum exploration

Supporters of Lugo’s highly dubious ouster claim that Crescent could help to ease Paraguay’s dependence on foreign oil. Richard González, Crescent’s CEO, announced that the company would invest $10 million in the Chaco and start exploratory drilling within the next few months. To be sure, there’s no proof or “smoking gun” that Crescent had anything to do with the political shakeup in Paraguay, yet the timing of the deal raises eyebrows.

In the wake of Paraguay’s suspicious impeachment of President Fernando Lugo, which observers have likened to a kind of “quasi-coup,” some may wonder whether underhanded corporate forces may have played a role in the political crisis. Such suspicions were heightened recently when the new de facto regime led by Federico Franco, Lugo’s former conservative Vice President, inked a deal with Texas-based PetroVictory/Crescent Global Oil to open up the remote Chaco region to petroleum exploration.

Supporters of Lugo’s highly dubious ouster claim that Crescent could help to ease Paraguay’s dependence on foreign oil. Richard González, Crescent’s CEO, announced that the company would invest $10 million in the Chaco and start exploratory drilling within the next few months. To be sure, there’s no proof or “smoking gun” that Crescent had anything to do with the political shakeup in Paraguay, yet the timing of the deal raises eyebrows. According to secret U.S. diplomatic correspondence released by whistle-blowing outfit WikiLeaks, Crescent had fallen out of favor with the previous Lugo administration. What is more, U.S. diplomats, who were concerned about Lugo’s leftist leanings and links to Hugo Chávez of Venezuela, pressed Crescent’s case. Fundamentally, the Crescent/Chaco affair raises real questions about what the U.S. is up to in Chaco, a vast, arid and inhospitable swath of territory. The region spans much of Paraguay, Bolivia and northern Argentina, and the area has been much fought over and coveted by nations in the vicinity [for a discussion of the Chaco, its history and wider U.S. geostrategic concerns see my earlier al-Jazeera column here].

Rival Interests

In many ways, recent developments in Paraguay hark back to the Chaco’s shadowy history of political intrigue. In 2007, prior to Lugo’s election, Asunción signed an energy agreement with Venezuelan state oil company PdVSA. Under the initiative, Hugo Chávez agreed to invest a whopping $600 million to modernize Paraguayan state company Petropar’s oil refinery. In addition, Venezuela provided 30% of Paraguay’s oil supply, assistance which was sorely needed as the Southern Cone nation was totally dependent on foreign sources of petroleum.

Provoking Washington yet further, Asunción signed a food-for-oil agreement with Venezuela. Under the initiative, Paraguay exported beef, soy, maize, rice and milk in return for Venezuelan diesel and oil-related products. Perhaps more importantly, Venezuela also offered to help Paraguay prospect for gas in the country’s western Chaco region. Needless to say, the anti-Chávez business community in Asunción, as well as the conservative Colorado Party and media were none too pleased by Venezuela’s offer of energy assistance.

In Washington meanwhile, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice took notice, asking her subordinates what the likely impact of “potentially large gas and oil deposits in the Chaco region” would have upon the Paraguayan economy. The U.S. Embassy in Asunción, concerned that Chávez might use his country’s oil largesse to exert greater geopolitical control over the Southern Cone, started to investigate Venezuelan activities in Paraguay.

U.S. oil companies based in Asunción such as Exxon-Mobil were also getting jittery. For years, the corporation had operated gas stations in Paraguay and received a large amount of oil from Petropar. Speaking with U.S. Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutiérrez, Exxon’s general manager “expressed concern regarding Petropar's intentions to upgrade its small local refinery with PDVSA's support, saying the project makes little economic sense.” On the eve of Lugo’s inauguration, the Exxon man added that “insecurities in the judicial system undermine Paraguay’s capacity to attract foreign investment.”

Washington’s Spying on Lugo

By late 2007, the presidential campaign was ramping up and Lugo looked pretty firm in the polls. A former Bishop who had praised Hugo Chávez and espoused progressive social ideas, Lugo discombobulated Rice at the State Department who ordered her subordinates to spy on the presidential aspirant. In Asunción meanwhile, U.S. diplomats sought out and interviewed one of Lugo’s advisers who disclosed that Chávez had already approached the Colorado opposition in an effort to spur the creation of a joint company called PdVSA Paraguay.

In April, 2008, Lugo was elected and Washington’s headache became more acute with the realization that South America’s leftist tide might sweep even further and become truly consolidated. In Caracas, Chávez met with Lugo and remarked “the Paraguayan people can be certain that starting now, Venezuela will guarantee the supply of oil to a fellow country…Paraguay won’t lack one drop of oil.” Hoping to deepen ties, Chávez urged Paraguay to form a joint oil venture and to join the left-leaning Bolivarian Alliance of the Americas, known by the Spanish acronym ALBA.

Crescent Touches Down in Paraguay

By 2008, however, Venezuela wasn’t the only aspiring player in Paraguay, with U.S. oil company Petro-Victory/Crescent also hoping to strike it big. Through their Paraguayan subsidiaries, Crescent and Petro-Victory prospected for oil in two concessions in the western Chaco near the Argentine border, known as the Pirity bloc, and within another concession in the so-called Alto Paraná bloc to the east of Asunción. According to a June, 2009 WikiLeaks cable, Crescent CEO González met personally with Lugo to discuss the possibility of oil exploration. Feeling optimistic, the firm invited “select companies to join a major exploration venture in its wholly owned…Pirity Block in Paraguay…the terrain is similar to West Texas…drilling is expected to be straightforward.”

Despite such rosy prognostications, Crescent soon ran into difficulties with the new Lugo administration. Paraguayan Minister of Public Works and Administration Emilio Boungermini, a Crescent detractor, argued that the company ought to abandon its concessions. According to the official, Crescent had taken advantage of an earlier resolution, which in his view was now unconstitutional and in any case invalidated under a new ministerial decree. Under the first resolution, Crescent would have had the right to explore for oil until May, 2012 but under the new rules of the game this time framework was drastically curtailed.

Boungermini was apparently so exorcised by Crescent that he cryptically informed González that the company should get out of its Alto Paraná concession or “face the consequences.” The Crescent CEO suspected that there were “political, ideological, and special interests” at stake in the decision, though it’s not clear from the cable what kinds of hidden forces might have been at play. Reportedly, Bourgemini had his own agenda in the Alto Paraná and favored Lan Oil, an oil company from Ecuadoran group Tripetrol which was in turn associated with Russian giant Lukoil.

In August, 2009 Paraguay awarded Crescent’s Alto Paraná concession to Lan, setting off howls of protest from the country’s conservative media. Right wing paper ABC Colorlet loose, remarking that the Ministry of Public Works had “abandoned national interests” by awarding concessions to Ecuadoran companies while shunting out American ones. In an apparent reference to Ecuador’s alliance with Venezuela, ABC Color added that the Asunción government was aiding and abetting the “Bolivarian advance.”

Crescent Mobilizes

Smarting under the decision, Crescent then turned to the U.S. Embassy for assistance and threatened to sue Paraguay for a whopping $2 billion. American diplomats pressed Crescent’s case with the Lugo administration, but fretted that the whole imbroglio might upset U.S.-Paraguay relations. Hardly deterred by such a possibility, Crescent “engaged in an escalating legal and public relations battle with the government of Paraguay.”

Specifically, the company hired Washington-based law firm Patton, Boggs and Blow which deployed “seasoned lobbyists” like Michael Driver. The latter had apparently attended school with Hillary Clinton “and/or her husband and served as a senior advisor during both their presidential campaigns.” Audaciously, Driver went straight up the chain of command, contacting Clinton’s Chief of Staff directly on behalf of Crescent.

Meanwhile, company shareholders lobbied Congress to block special trade preferences for Paraguay. In particular, Crescent singled out New York Democratic Congressman and Chair of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere Elliott Engel, who had earlier championed the Lugo government on Capitol Hill. In April, 2009 Engel introduced the U.S.-Paraguay Partnership Act which sought to add Paraguay as an Andean Trade Preference Act (ATPA) beneficiary. Subsequently, ATPA extension for Paraguay languished in Congress though it’s unclear whether this had anything to do with surreptitious lobbying [when queried over e-mail concerning the extent and nature of Crescent appeals, Engel’s office refused to comment for this article].

Not stopping there, CEO González even lobbied noted Columbia University economist Joseph Stiglitz, who had earlier advised the Lugo administration. Somewhat bizarrely, Crescent apparently hoped that the leftist professor would have a change of heart and “write negatively about Paraguay or help them in any way” [when queried in an e-mail about his knowledge of the Crescent affair, Stiglitz similarly failed to respond].

Paraguayan Lobbying

If that was not enough, Crescent also launched “an aggressive press campaign in Paraguay.” According to the U.S. Embassy in Asunción, the effort included “a series of six consecutive articles in Paraguay's most influential newspapers. The articles profiled Crescent as a serious U.S. oil company, described the company's truncated plans to explore its Chaco and Alto Paraná concessions, detailed the Ministry of Public Works irregular and arbitrary handling of the case, and discussed the negative consequences the dispute has for Paraguay's investment climate.” Not stopping there, González then took his case all the way to national television. During one talk show, the irate CEO even confronted Boungermini personally and “by most accounts, the televised exchange exposed the bias of the Ministry towards Lan Oil, negatively impacting the Ministry’s credibility.”

According to the U.S. Embassy in Asunción, Crescent also hired Gustavo de Gásperi, “one of Paraguay’s most influential attorneys, to lead its legal team.” De Gásperi is listed on the web site of a right wing think tank called the Forum for Strategic Domestic and International Analysis, known by its Spanish acronym FAENI. The group is comprised of politicians, journalists, diplomats and members of the Paraguayan armed forces who are concerned about the threat posed by Evo Morales of Bolivia and Hugo Chávez. De Gásperi himself has penned a number of alarmist columns for ABC Color about Chávez and “undue pressure exerted upon foreigners within new areas that are being opened up in the Chaco.

Venezuela Oil Lobby vs. Paraguayan Right

Despite the intense lobbying, Crescent’s problems only continued to mount under the Lugo government. Having already rescinded Crescent’s Alto Paraná concession, Asunción now announced that the company had failed to observe Paraguay’s relevant hydrocarbons laws, and as a result the government would revoke the firm’s prospecting and exploratory rights in the Chaco Pirity bloc. A livid González vented to ABC Color, remarking that the Ministry of Public Works was behaving arbitrarily like Hugo Chávez.

Even as the Crescent imbroglio festered, Chávez conducted his own lobbying efforts. According to U.S. diplomats, Petropar had fallen into serious debt to PdVSA over the years. Perhaps figuring that he might capitalize on the situation, Chavéz suggested that Paraguay should enter into joint oil ventures with Venezuela as a means of paying off its debts. Petropar, however, resisted the idea though the company was “in a vulnerable position because its options for fuel supply and debt refinancing are limited -- sooner or later [the company] will concede to PDVSA's joint venture advances.”

Such prospects were truly horrifying to the likes of Lugo’s rightist Vice President Federico Franco, who exclaimed that Chávez should not adopt an “imperialist attitude” toward Paraguay and Petropar’s debts to Venezuela. In July, 2010, in an incredibly brazen act of insubordination, Franco even sought to overrule Lugo’s decree which had declared Crescent’s Pirity Bloc concession null and void. Franco had been able to exercise such a daring maneuver as his boss was out of the country on official business. Franco, however, lacked ultimate authority in such matters which pertained to the Ministry of Public Works, and his efforts failed to reinstate the company.

Lingering Questions

Having suffered a setback, it seems as if Crescent would have had difficulty prevailing in Paraguay. A few months later after Franco’s attempt to have the company reinstated, the head of Petropar told the media that Russian oil companies had expressed interest in oil exploration and Paraguay sought to attract Brazilian investment, but the official made no mention of American firms or Crescent for that matter. The situation changed dramatically, however, once Lugo was hustled out of the presidency in a kangaroo process and Franco assumed power. Wasting no time, Paraguay’s new president approved Crescent’s work in the Chaco, and the company now looks poised to spearhead the area’s future oil development. Needless to say, Venezuela has been unhappy with the political shakeup in Asunción, and Chávez’s PdVSA moved to discontinue oil shipments to Paraguay.

Now that the U.S. has preserved its strategic position in Paraguay and Venezuela has lost influence, it’s time to step back and sort out what actually happened here. To be sure Crescent was a beneficiary of Paraguay’s regime change, and the company also lobbied against Lugo both internationally and in country. That doesn’t mean, however, that the company was involved in any kind of conspiratorial effort culminating in the president’s impeachment. Nevertheless, the American public, which has little insight into its own government’s activities in Paraguay, deserves to know more. What kind of an impact did Crescent lobbying have on official Washington policy? Perhaps, if journalists start to investigate, we can ascertain once and for all whether Paraguay’s “quasi-coup” did indeed exude the viscous “smell of oil.”

David Barton, president of the Christian conservative WallBuilders organization and a frequent guest on Glenn Beck's broadcasts, has for years been getting away with historicide. Criticism of Barton's politically motivated and tenuous grasp of history, once the sole province of liberal scholars, church-state separationists, and left wing political activists and bloggers, is now spreading beyond liberal enclaves, as several Christian scholars are criticizing Barton for just plain making stuff up.

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David Barton, one of Glenn Beck's favorite "historians", is being called out by Christian scholars for playing fast and loose with the facts.

David Barton, president of the Christian conservative WallBuilders organization and a frequent guest on Glenn Beck's broadcasts, has for years been getting away with historicide. Criticism of Barton's politically motivated and tenuous grasp of history, once the sole province of liberal scholars, church-state separationists, and left wing political activists and bloggers, is now spreading beyond liberal enclaves, as several Christian scholars are criticizing Barton for just plain making stuff up.

World Magazine's Thomas Kidd recently reported that Barton's book, The Jefferson Lies: Exposing the Myths You've Always Believed About Thomas Jefferson, was recently voted the "Least Credible History Book in Print," by readers of George Mason University's History News Network. At the end of polling, Barton's The Jefferson Lies barely edged out Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States by nine votes -- 650 to 641.

In a recent World article titled "The David Barton controversy", Kidd reported that "some conservative Christian scholars are publicly questioning Barton's work."

According to Kidd, "Jay W. Richards, senior fellow at the Discovery Institute, [a conservative Catholic] and author with [televangelist] James Robison of Indivisible: Restoring Faith, Family, and Freedom Before It's Too Late, ... said in recent months he has grown increasingly troubled about Barton's writings, so he asked 10 conservative Christian professors to assess Barton's work."

The responses were uniformly negative. Kidd pointed out that Glenn Moots of Northwood University, "wrote that Barton in The Jefferson Lies is so eager to portray Jefferson as sympathetic to Christianity that he misses or omits obvious signs that Jefferson stood outside 'orthodox, creedal, confessional Christianity.'"

Another professor, Glenn Sunshine of Central Connecticut State University, "said that Barton's characterization of Jefferson's religious views is 'unsupportable.' Yet another, Gregg Frazer of The Master's College, evaluated Barton's video America's Godly Heritage and found many of its factual claims dubious, such as a statement that '52 of the 55 delegates at the Constitutional Convention were 'orthodox, evangelical Christians.'"

Kidd noted that the book Getting Jefferson Right: Fact Checking Claims about Our Third President (Salem Grove Press), by Professors Warren Throckmorton (psychology) and Michael Coulter (humanities and political science) of Grove City College, a largely conservative Christian school in Pennsylvania, "argues that Barton 'is guilty of taking statements and actions out of context and simplifying historical circumstances.' For example, they charge that Barton, in explaining why Jefferson did not free his slaves, 'seriously misrepresents or misunderstands (or both) the legal environment related to slavery.'"

Writing for Talk2Action, Rob Boston, a senior policy analyst with Americans for Separation of Church and State, pointed out that Throckmorton and Coulter "look at numerous pieces of disinformation spread by Barton and give the real story, usually backing up their claims with words from Jefferson's own writings" (http://www.talk2action.org/story/2012/5/8/123341/5130).

"The duty of Christians as scholars," the professors write, "is first to get the facts correct.... Engaging in scholarship as a Christian is not about who is on our team; it should have as an aim of uncovering the facts about a subject, whether it is a historical figure or a theory of social science, and following the data where they lead."

Barton, who maintained that Throckmorton and Coulter are "academic elitists" and oppose his "personal religious beliefs," still has a legion of conservative supporters, including Beck, former Arkansas Governor, and Chick-fil-A booster, Mike Huckabee, disgraced former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, and Republican Congresswoman Michelle Bachman.

Beck claimed that Barton's book, "really opened his own eyes to America's true history that so many Americans have never heard before."

"If you've never read a David Barton book, you've not read a history book," Beck said. "David is one of the best, if not the best historians in America. He is doing everything he can to turn history back and write it and put it back to where it was and tell history like it was, and to tell the truth, both good and bad. Thomas Jefferson is such an important figure. This is a watershed book that you need to equip yourself with and equip your family and children with, so they know about the truth about Jefferson."

On his WallBuilders website, Barton blasted his critics, arguing that they are jealous of the sales figures of his books: "I have penned numerous best-selling history works, and characteristic of each is a heavy reliance on primary-source documentation ... Not many individuals in America have read more original works (or fewer modern ones) than I have; and the general public has responded enthusiastically to this history based on original documentation... [T]ypical history works by modern elitist professors generally sell very poorly; and seeing their own influence wane, they often lash out and condescendingly criticize the more popular documentary works.

"...significantly, however, the public does not respond well to these works, for publishers claim that with few exceptions most academic scholars' books sell only two hundred or so copies a year.

"After The Jefferson Lies, rose to a New York Times best-seller, similar attacks were launched against it from academic elitists. I will address three of these attacks below, but first, I must tackle their oft-repeated talking-point that I am not a qualified historian – a claim they make to cast a shadow of doubt over all the facts I present. However, this charge, like their others, is completely false.

"After all, I am: Recognized as an historical expert by both state and federal courts; Called to testify as an historical expert by both the federal and state legislatures; Selected as an historical expert by State Boards of Education across the nation to assist in writing history and social studies standards for those states; Consulted as an historical expert by public school textbook publishers, helping write best-selling history texts used in public schools and universities across the nation."

In mid-July on Wallbuilders Live, Barton, who often wanders far afield and who, according to People for the American Way's Right Wing Watch "compares homosexuality to smoking and celebrates the fact that there isn't a cure for AIDS," basically endorsed Mitt Romney's candidacy: "So why do we have a question here? Because he's a Mormon? Hey, we've got to get past labels. Just like Obama's Christian label means nothing, Romney's Mormon label means nothing. What matters is the fruit, which one is going to produce more biblical fruit ...

"There's only two options Christians have. Christians do not have the option of sitting this one out. You do not have that option, it is not a possibility. You will stand before God and He will say "I gave you your vote, what did you do with your vote?" And we can't just say "well, I chose to sit this one out."